Piano Glass / Glass Piano Reviews

“Marjorie Becker’s second collection of poems, Piano Glass, Glass Piano, is a truly remarkable achievement. Novelistic in its narrative conception and operatic in its dramatic sweep, this sequence of poems charts the oscillations of identity and sexuality, following the story of its speaker/narrator, Marnie, who is first seamstress then shopkeeper, and whore then Madam. Unspoken racial anxiety, the construction of Southern Jewish identity, the potential transformation of the self by use of the body—all of these are at stake and under discussion in Marnie’s brilliantly interwoven stories. . . Marnie is an extraordinary character, one of the most provocative and compelling female speakers in recent fiction or poetry . . . .
– David St. John

“In Marjorie Becker’s Piano Glass/Glass Piano, we are immersed in a world of sensual tutelage, or aromas, of characters so true and rich, so lush and inviting that their seductions become our seductions. These poems reach a depth of feeling and music and just when we think they can go no further they probe deeper into mythic layers of eroticism and loss. These are fantastic and compelling poems, an amalgamation of poetic flight and earth tones. This is simply an exquisite book that satisfies the mind and all of the senses.”
– Paul Lieber